Bolton is NSA. Yikes. All the more reason to cancel the Trump-Kim summit. If it goes badly – which is a distinct possibility with only 9 weeks prep and Bolton now in W House – Bolton will press for airstikes on NK, as he has in the past. This is bad

When Bolton was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control/Intl Security at @StateDept during Bush 43,he drove a number of outstanding career nonProliferation experts out of their jobs.He will be a good fit w his vindictive new boss but Who will protect all of us?

John Bolton strongly supported every war the US has fought, believes there should be no limits how US fights it's wars, and strongly supports starting new regime change wars with Iran and nuclear-armed N. Korea.

Bolton, like Trump, owes much to hard-right hedge fund donor Robert Mercer. Mercer has donated $5M to Bolton's super-pac since 2013, and is Bolton's biggest donor. Bolton has relied on Cambridge Analytica, which Mercer helped found and fund, like Trump, too. Big Mercer influence. https://t.co/Bo7nUWaAkj

Bolton is a terrible, terrible choice, and he’s embroiled in MercerLand and whatever is going on with the NRA and Russia. Maybe Mueller will drop some new indictments; speed them up. We’ve got about 2-3 weeks.

If you were looking for a National Security Advisor most likely to bring out the worst in Trump-it's Bolton. If you're looking for a National Security Advisor most likely to lead to war-it's Bolton. If you're looking for a Nat'l Security Advisor most likely to fail–also Bolton

I had been trying to cultivate an ethic of hope. I wanted to believe optimism was not naive, that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, that everything Trump was doing could eventually be undone, that better forces would prevail.

@debbie: Umm…I was punning on the phrase “March for Our Lives” given just how life-threatening the news feels. I don’t seriously plan to “hijack” the march on Saturday–not that I would be able to do it in any event.

Let’s dispel with the notion that Li’l Marco has a brain in his balding noggin

Marco Rubio @ marcorubio
I know John Bolton well, he is an excellent choice who will do an great job as National Security Advisor. General McMaster has served and will continue to serve our nation well. We should all be grateful to him for his service.

@TenguPhule: If you’re a youngish professional and can demonstrate skills, self-sufficiency and other positives it’s not THAT hard to get permanent residence status. But still difficult compared to many other countries that really want US Immigrants.

I really don’t believe we could win a war with either NK or Iran without resorting to nuclear weapons. I have no doubt that Bolton wants to start wars with both believing, as the Bush crew did, that victory will be easy.

I keep looking for bright signs, and I am damned glad a lot of us are out marching this weekend for kids lives; against gun violence. It has put us in touch with like-minded souls, it’s good exercise, and it needs to happen a LOT more frequently, on a LOT of different issues.

Can’t add much to this except every move Trump makes seems designed to weaken the U.S. — the economy is going into the shitter if the trade war kicks off as planned, they slashed taxes, so we’ll be in the hole. How do you plan to pay for the war? It’s back to 70s style stagflation at best; at worst we’ll be in the direct line of fire this time and war will no longer be an abstraction to our arm-chair commandoes — it’ll be something we’ll be lucky to survive.

Trump and Bolton have been discussing for weeks how he could replace McMaster. According to what a source familiar with those negotiations told me, Bolton promised Trump "he wouldn't start any wars" if he selected him as the new national security adviser.

Trump wants to make boom-boom like the big boy Presidents. He’ll get his way, too. The worst part is that a North Korean missile will land on LA or Seattle, decent places, rather than a shithole like Hazleton, Pa. that elected Trump.

It occurred to me earlier that this is Cleek’s Law in action. Trump is probably enjoying Twitter right now.

This is peak Trump. It’s all about triggering the liberals, but not actually doing any of the stupid stuff they say. Of course, this depends on the hopeful assumption that Trump and Bolton are master strategists who won’t back themselves into any corners and get us all killed. https://t.co/t03X9OsLd7

The War Party is clearly in the ascendancy now. I just heard McMaster is retiring, not getting another assignment and a 4th star. Suppose that means he knows what’s coming? The question now is what will Mattis do?

A war with North Korea would devastate South Korea and possibly Japan via a nuke and that folks, ends horribly for North Korea with retaliation and leaves fall out for the great U S of A – not sure even the orange fart cloud could get a real attack at that level to go. In a similar manner, a war with Iran would be a land based blood bath for both sides – one which frankly, we have too few troops to maintain but at least, nukes would not be possible (the amerkican military has made that clear.)

The most likely action is bomber attacks on either country’s or even both. If Iran, that just means a conventional pay back later that is hard to trace. For North Korea, that means Soul gets heavy artillery retaliation and a strong threat of Japan getting nuked if we cross a trip wire.

@ewrunning: Adam has said in the past that getting McMaster back into active military was going to be very difficult – McMaster was at the end of his career (in terminal assignment) and wasn’t going to ever be promoted. Putting him BACK into the military was going to fuck up the career paths of a lot of established generals and military people, and would have been very difficult to get military agreement on.

@Radiumgirl: As usual w trump, the econ bark of tariffs is worse than the bite: every major steel and aluminum trade partner is exempt. It’s a show for the MAGA proles, just like the Carrier/Indiana show.

@Matt McIrvin:
I was under the impression that Congress was in charge of declaring war … Oh. I see your point. Anyway, Trump will happily delegate his CinC war-starting power to Bolton as soon as Bolton asks.

It seems like it was only yesterday when people foolishly thought that advisers like Kelly and McMaster would be the adults in the room and would restrain Trump. Some pundits and reporters would note, but underestimate how much Trump chaffed at having to be “presidential,” being thoughtful and deliberative.

The greatest danger that Bolton poses is that he might think too much like Trump himself and be quick to anger and vindictiveness. But either way Trump is eager to govern with his inner rage monster fully unleashed.

Who knows, the way the Trump admin works I say there’s a 50/50 chance Bolton’s done something in the past few years that makes it impossible to get a security clearance. If That were the case he could only be NSA for six months or so, right? Oh yeah, that Jared dude is still there isn’t he?

There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit
And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit
And the vermin of the world inhabit it.
But not for long.
They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs Lovett, tell you why.

Because in all of the whole human race, Mrs Lovett,
There are two kinds of men and only two.
There’s the one who stays put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one’s face.
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.
Though we all deserve to die. Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I.

Bcause the lives of the wicked should be, made brief.
For the rest of us death will be a relief.
We all deserve to die.

So, Bolton’s position is advisory and he’s not the first fruitcake Trump has put there. Trump remains a coward of legendary proportions. I’m not freaking out, yet. We’ll probably get a ramp up of chest beating. Trump does love his chest beating.

Not cracking up. Accelerating the plan…er, campaign promise – the strongest military ever and the strongest economy ever. What do you suppose Hitler was promising and the German people loved him until their cities started getting bombed and then were eventually marched through the death camps to reflect on their bad choices.

Coal, steel, heavy manufacturing. What was it that was so central to Hitlers ambitions? What book did wife #1 …or #2, …or thereabouts, say that The Donald used to keep on the nightstand? MGGA.

Of course, Trump has also promised to build our nuclear arsenal and actions like trimming the Bears Ears in Utah opens up an awful lot of land for Uranium mining.

He’s a demented old, angry, authoritarian, immoral, ethically devoid, and deluded narcissist that’s deliberately looking to create a Grand legacy even if it means burning Obama…..I mean the world to the ground. And he loves him the dictator crowd.

(God it’s hard to gauge whether I’m an old conspiracy theorist crank or a prescient prognosticator. Either way I’m engaging the bourbon tonight.)

Iran’s not going to hit the US “at home”, they will content themselves with watching the US blow up it’s Global Military and Economic Alliance system, blow up the Global Economy again, and content themselves with fighting the US to a bloody stalemate.

Iran will emerge as the Regional Power, with greatly increased economic ties to the EU, South Korea and Japan.

Actual email quote to my RWNJ dad – who actually understands that this is not good news for the country: “Thots and prars for the 51M South Koreans, 127M Japanese, and 23K US soldiers who just got quite-justified chills down their spines at this announcement”

Anyone who agrees with that statement will be beaten to death by a frozen Haddock and not allowed to vote.

Well, technically, if they’ve already been mortally haddocked, then they’re dead and can’t vote anyway. Unless they’re Democrats.* In which case we would want them to vote, right? I say bring on the haddock!

Bolton is an ally of Gottlieb (Oregon radical who started ‘the 2 am. fdn’ and ‘the cit. comm. for right to … arms.’ He also started/directed/ is heavily involved with IAPCAR, though he doesn’t seem to cop to that now.)

Those groups oppose international efforts to limit the conventional weapons flow that feeds smaller wars in developing counties. (Soon after Aurora they managed to get the Senate to (along with the Russians) vote down a UN treaty. Bolton helped.).

I suspect Bolton’s association with IAPCAR explains his video for the 2013 conference in Russia that IAPCAR’s Russian affiliate hosted and iirc NRA leaders and some Congress members attended, along with Gottlieb. This Russian affiliate (called something like Arms for Rus.) had joined them (after forming?) in 2012.

I might be wrong about this, but IAPCAR seems to organize groups in countries around the world and then announce that those groups have joined them. They seem kind of secretive to me. They seem to use women’s self defense and anti-immigrant hatred as themes, to connect to their belief that the UN and Pres. Obama want to take away rights.

I’ve seen them promote AfD (Germany), which they misname “populist.”
From wiki:

Founded in April 2013, the AfD narrowly missed the 5% electoral threshold to sit in the Bundestag during the 2013 federal election. In 2014 the party won seven seats in the European election as a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists. After securing representation in 14 of the 16 German state parliaments by October 2017, the AfD became the third-largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election, claiming 94 seats in the Bundestag, a major breakthrough for the party as it was the first time the AfD had won any seats in the Bundestag.

So without any proof I wonder about them and arms dealers and fascism.

@jimmiraybob:
The former. There are plausible signs Trump considers himself a Nazi, but despite his declarations of love for new nukes, he hasn’t done anything about it. Despite his many threats against Iran and North Korea he hasn’t done anything about them. Congress has given him a little more money for defense and otherwise ignored him in terms of actual lawmaking. His grand legacy consists so far of a lot of deregulation and not staffing positions. After the Yemen raid bit him in the ass, his only actual military action was a symbolic bombing in Syria he got Putin’s approval for. All his talk about prosecuting his enemies, firing Mueller, extorting NATO, he’s done none of it. I guess he did put some idiot tariffs into place, but the only thing you can really rely on Trump to do is sit on his ass and tell you how tough he is.

When Bolton was Undersecretary of State for Arms Control/Intl Security at @StateDept during Bush 43,he drove a number of outstanding career nonProliferation experts out of their jobs.

When the British were negotiating with Gaddafi to give up their nuclear program and make amends for the Lockerbie incident they absolutely insisted that Bolton play no part in the discussions whatsoever. They knew he would screw it up.

It’s not completely on purpose. I have MSNBC on one of the DVR’s two channels. I start the show a little bit late so I can fast-forward through commercials. But then I get distracted by phone calls, Cherokee Korean princess Joanna on Fixer Upper, bright objects on the Internet, making dinner, feeding the housecat, drinking, etc. So the buffer builds up. Silver lining: I’ve got more room to fast-forward through distasteful segments like Chris Hayes massaging Bernie Sanders.

Iran will emerge as the Regional Power, with greatly increased economic ties to the EU, South Korea and Japan.

I think this is right. The American Century is over. Trump has blown up the post-WWII order with his trade wars, his anti-NATO stance, his bellicose rhetoric vis-a-vis North Korea, and now his willingness to involve the US in regional conflicts. If Iran plays its cards right, it will renew it’s commitment to the agreement with its European partners. That would be a powerful alliance for it.

@Jay: We have plenty of soft and vital targets. The threat of retaliation has always served as a check, because state actors know that its very very hard to keep the truth from being found out eventually.

OK. For now I’m stepping back back off the ledge. We’ll see. A lot of Hitler’s early detractors thought that he was an ineffectual goof too. If we had some kind of governmental checks besides hoping for the Mueller investigation to stop the madness i’d feel better.

There’s a reason 9/11 was a fluke and most terrorist attacks in the US are Nazi’s. The National Security State in the US and it’s global survelliance regime, make the US “homeland” a very hard target.

The Iranian’s are also very well aware that to many in the US, and Internationally, they are the “bad guys”. They know that a terrorist attack would create sympathy for the devil, where flooding social media with telegenic dead Iranian kids, from the indescriminate US bombing will be an impossible narrative for the US to counter, more so given Treason Tribble’s twitter and Bolton’s mouth.

@NotMax: Kellogg was only an acting NSA, and was never intended to serve long-term. He kept the seat warm for one week between Flynn and McMaster. Flynn is officially listed as the nation’s 25th NSA and McMaster is considered the 26th.

@lamh36:
Don’t you already use the metric system, or at least SI units, at work? In any case the metric system is way easier to learn and use than the US system, so you shouldn’t face any problems at all.

They know that a terrorist attack would create sympathy for the devil, where flooding social media with telegenic dead Iranian kids, from the indescriminate US bombing will be an impossible narrative for the US to counter, more so given Treason Tribble’s twitter and Bolton’s mouth.

It wouldn’t be terrorism though. That’s my point. They could hit economic targets like ports and bridges, assassinate government officials and it would all be legal under the laws of war. The only sympathetic coverage would be domestic, we’d get the whole “this is your fault” internationally.

If Iran plays to win, they have to hit us domestically in order to disrupt forces and supplies shipping from the US mainland to a fight in the middle east. Our military’s biggest weakness has always been logistical.

@lamh36: IIRC, you do not have to speak French to be welcomed to Canada but it helps.

They award points for various characteristics: so many points for being in a certain age range (they don’t want you if you are too old), for certain professions and skills sets, and so on, and points if you speak French.

If you have enough other points, you can get in without French but if you are on the cusp and speak French, that could give you a high enough score.

The title was not the same and his resumé may thus differ but it matters not if it was for one hour. He was still head honcho of the office and exercised control of all that goes with it. See: Lawrence Eagleburger, for a different example.

Iran doesn’t have the ability to carry out any kind of domestic campaign in the US. Despite the RWNJ’s claims of IRG’s flooding into the US, almost all the “Iranian Plots” in the US have involved the FBI entrapping some less than stable Iranian-Americans in Keystone Cops Plots. The IRG’s greatest sucesses, aside from Iran-Contra, is/was getting Greedy American’s to ship them spare parts and blueprints to allow them to repair/maintain/modify the Shah Era weapons in their arsenal.

Iran also has no need to target US ports or politicians. Every port and airport in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea is well within range or surrounded by a Shia minority or majority. There’s no need for Iran to shoot US Politicians, they shoot themselves in the foot regularly in regards to Iran.

If the “Real Men go to Tehran” crew get their “waron”, it will probably be the US, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia vs Iran, with Israel cheering from the sidelines.

Of course, in Iraq, Syria and Qatar, things will go sideways suddenly for the US presence. Turkey and Pakistan will opt out of cooperating with the US and could either side with Iran, or just take passive agressive actions to muck up the US in the region. Afghanistan could go either way, and India would be “out” as any kind of US Regional Partner.

The Sauds, UAE, Bahrain are currently flailing in Yemen, burning through cash and liquidating Reserves. $150 a barrel oil would look good on paper, but since the Iran-Iraq War, Iran has invested heavily in their ability to shut down the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. They learned a lot about US capabilities and weaknesses from DubyaDubya Me Too, and studied the hell out of the US’s failed Scud Hunt in the Gulf War. They’ve spent a lot of time and money on ways of making US and Allied bases in the region, ports, and airfields “untenable”.

The US’s Gulf State allies will be the first to fold. Bahrain might even violently become a democracy, and the Saud’s have that little problem of having all their oil and refineries under Shia tribal turf.

@Mnemosyne: You only have to speak one of the two official languages fluently. English is one, so she’s fine there. Also, anything medical will get her a work visa faster than anything. She could probably start the process and be good in a year.

1. Trump’s lawyers are now all some combination of incompetent, corrupt or crazy. Müller and the FBI are none of these.

2. Trump’s cabinet, with the exception of Mattis and Chao, are now all some combination of incompetent, corrupt or crazy. Incl Pompeo, who invited the top brass of Russian intel to DC for a meeting.

3. Trump’s immigration policies have achieved nothing but the infliction gratuitous cruelty on the weak. That is tragic, but Obama deported more by concentrating on real criminals.

4. Trump’s budgets have turned into a grab bag for Congress, incl Dems.
Who cares about deficits?

5. Trump is a pretend President with a pretend staff, a pretend Cabinet, pretend policies, and a pretend legal defense strategy. For him, the US is just another Trump name franchise like Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Casino, Trump University.

6. The big question is whether he’ll stiff us like he did his rube investors. Remember that no bank but the failing Deutschebank [aka the Moscow Laundromat] has been willing to lend him money for over a decade.

Yeah, it’s bad. But I predict that in the end, it’s the GOP who foots the bill.If the collateral damage ain’t too bad, that is a slightly positive outcome.

@Cheryl Rofer: The problem with him being a diaster will be the five to ten million dead, and when it fails, Bolton will be on Sean Hannity being paid a handsome sum to say it would have all worked out but for dolchstoss from the “globalists, hippies, foreigners, etc.” It was his excuse for not serving in Vietnam.